Elliot's Camp Recount

On the 21st of May 2013, Hub 3 year 7 and 8’s travelled to Motutapu for this years camp. Firstly we arrived at Pier Z in Westhaven, then we all hopped on the boat to Motutapu. It took about 1 and a half hours. When we arrived, we made a chain to load all of our luggage onto the truck. After everything was loaded onto the truck, we walked to the camp. It was a walk with alot of hills. I estimated the walk was about 7 kilometres.

We finally arrived at the camp after a 1 and ½ hour walk. We went over and sat under the shade of the deck. All of us were tired. The camp instructor gave us a briefing about the camp. He told us that we’d be sharing the camp with some girls that were staying in the lodge down by the beach, but only for 1 day. Our first activity was the Motutapu Challenge.The first thing we did was dig a hole under a kayak to get all of our team under. Secondly we had to fill the kayak with water and go under it. Thirdly we had to run to the other side of the field and put the lightest person on a disc and carry them back, then we ran to barrels and one person had to jump on and roll to a certain point. Then when we did that we had to grab a rope and hold onto it for the rest of the challenge. We had to walk through a swamp and then through a pond. We ran into the ocean waist deep. Our group won from coming last. After a shower we got into our groups and started our next activity. My group’s starting activity was Abseiling. It looked really awesome, it was way taller than my other camp that I went to which had a really small Abseiling wall. Sadly I couldn’t do it that day because when my turn came around, a thunderstorm was coming in. Because of the thunderstorm, every group had to stop what they were doing and go inside. I went inside the dorm. My bed was at the back of the dorm with other people. We started leap frogging onto each others beds, it was really funny. Then we went into the kitchen for afternoon tea. After afternoon tea I went back into the dorm.

Where I was sleeping it was havoc. People were jumping on beds again, and it wasn’t even night. It was raining really hard outside, but you couldn’t hear it because we were so loud. Then it was dinner time. All of the year 7 and 8’s were put in groups to make a certain dish, for example, one group was making Pizza and another was making Butter Chicken. All of the dishes were really nice. The one that I enjoyed most was the Pizza. My group made a Self-saucing pudding. I thought it was okay, but it was a bit too rich.

After dinner we all went into the dorms to get changed for bed. For some reason while I was changing, Matthew was runnin up and down the boys dorm wearing only underpants!

Lights out was at 9:30 p.m. Then we had to go to bed. I woke up at 6:30 a.m and so did my friends, we acted really silly early in the morning. The the lights came back on at 7:00 a.m. We had to get dressed for breakfast. There was Milo with no milk in it. It tasted really yucky.

Then we started our first activity. My group’s activity was Archery. Archery was really fun because you had to hit the target which was really hard. Jackson Twiss hit a bullseye.

We did a competition of who could get the most points. My team got 3rd place, but I can’t remember how many points we got. Then we went in for lunch. While I was washing my dishes, I heard screams of joy and it wasn’t coming from the canteen, then I heard a bunch of sighs of people in the canteen. I knew then that the year 5 and 6’s were here. My friends and I ran to the dorm and launched a security wall so that no year 5 and 6 for some reason that they couldn’t get in. I don’t know why we did it. Somehow it worked until Leo got angry and kicked a hole in the wall. Therefore, people involved in it had to sleep in the parents’ dorm. That meant some year 5’s and 6’s had to move in, but we only let the cool ones in. Then we had to get dressed for raft building. It was really cold outside. When we finished building the raft. Matthew and Kush hopped on. Matthew jumped about 3 times and always failed. Kush hopped on easily, but a few minutes later while riding it his legs started slipping through the hole in it, before we knew it , he had been eaten by Rafty, the man eating raft. After dinner we had a quiz. In the middle of the quiz we were winning.

In the morning it was time for breakfast. I had cereal with fruit salad, it was yummy. Mr Baker announced the winner of the quiz, and it was us. Then we went back to our dorms to get dressed for our first activity. My group’s name was The Dark Knights and our first activity was Archery. Like the day before, we did a points challenge. Our part of the group won the challenge. Then it was morning tea time. After morning tea time we had our next activity. It was supposed to be sailing but because of the choppy waters, we couldn’t do it, instead we did rock climbing. Rockclimbing was really awesome. At the end Bodhi, Jackson Twiss, Alasdair and I did the Ninja Death Grip. When we left the activity, Bodhi had the high score of 46.9 seconds, but then we found out that Alex P beat it and got a time of 1 minute and 5 seconds. After lunch we did High Ropes. It was really awesome. The hardest would’ve have to of been the cargo net and the Posties Walk. Then we went and did the survivor challenge. It was really hard especially the Tyre Tunnel. Our team came first by a far margin. After that it was dinner time. Then we had spotlight prison break. I went up to the drying room and got my black shoes to camouflage in. When we started we had glow bracelets to identify us. After all the prison breaking happened, we went back into the canteen to count up crosses. Our group got 7. As an individual I got none.

It was our last morning at camp. We all woke up and ate breakfast. It was pancakes and leftover apple crumble. I love apple crumble meaning I had apple crumble for breakfast, and man was it delicious. After breakfast we got into our groups for our last activity which was the Confidence Course. It was so fun. I especially liked the spider web. After the confidence course we started packing. After I finished packing each group was assigned to a certain job. My groups job was the toilets. It wasn’t the nicest job in the world. When I finished my job, there was a sausage sizzle for lunch, mmmm. The sausages were delicious.

After that we had to load our stuff onto the truck. Then we all grabbed our day packs and started walking to the dock. I was gonna miss this place as it was really cool. We arrived at the dock after an hour and a half. We loaded everything on and hopped on the boat. In the middle of the boat ride another boat made a wave and just about tipped us

over. After 1 hour we arrived back at Pier Z. I can’t wait to go back in a years time because I had the best time.